I woke up this morning with the best of intentions. In an effort to clean out my house, I found some material that I wanted to recycle. I looked online for some places that would accept the items and felt like I did my homework.
I started with the places that were closest to me. Some places only accept aluminum, some only cardboard – so I looked for places that accepted all of what I had. There appeared to be 4 of them and they were all within city limits. Great.
So off I went to the first location. Well, what they didn’t tell you is that they charge by the pound… and me without my checkbook.
I headed off to the next location (the high school from which I graduated) but stopped off at another location I THOUGHT had some recycling containers. Apparently that location no longer had the receptacles because I looked all around so I headed to the school.
Upon reaching the high school I did not see any recycling center. It mentioned online that this was a “manned” location that was open 24-hours (it was only manned during the day). The campus looked about the same as I remember while I was driving around but no indication of them doing any recycling. Hmm.
Now I’m getting a little perturbed. I’m 0 for 3.
All right, so I head back home to get some lunch and regroup. There are 2 more locations on the other side of town. Maybe I’ll make some calls and see what’s what.
Seems my luck is about the same. I called the number of the “Recycling Coordinator” for the city – the CITY!!! – And the number is disconnected. No forwarding number.
So I head out after lunch and go for the one furthest from me. Oops! I just passed one of the sites. That’s okay; I’ll swing by on the way home.
The others sites would only accept one or two of my items – this one I’m headed to advertises itself as taking all of them. But my luck continues.
I’m thinking that this is going to be some impressive site with state-of-the-art sorting bins and recycling capabilities. Nope, it’s just three large dumpsters and all they take is cardboard. What?!?
I take what I have for cardboard and slide it into the thin slots. All three dumpsters are almost at capacity. It’s windy today so that large pieces of flat cardboard act like a sail and get away from me. It’s like trying to load an angry cat into its carrier. I finally get all the pieces in the slots and leave. I don’t feel satisfied because cardboard was the smallest part of my haul.
Finally, I start for home with the thought of dropping by the last and final recycling station. I turn into the parking lot to find all they accept are aluminum cans. Blurgh! I do have some aluminum cans but they’re all mixed together with plastic and glass bottles. I’m not sitting there in front of this stupid thing separating out aluminum cans in windy, 40-degree weather. This is ridiculous!
I’m not proud of what I did next; in fact, I’m sort of embarrassed. I tried to do the right thing. I felt like I did due diligence in finding these places. I must admit that I threw all my bags into a dumpster.
I think my story emphasizes what’s wrong with recycling in this country. More people are not doing it for this reason alone – the system is totally disorganized!
Okay, to be fair I DO have curbside recycling. I have large blue container that I wheel out to my curb every two weeks. But in this case I had more recyclable materials than would fit in that container and I wanted to do the responsible thing. My attempts were thwarted and I feel badly.
*** THIS JUST IN ***
More from the “good news” department. I just got a call from my lovable city in which I owe them more taxes on my house. I just sent them a check for $800 that I REALLY would have loved to hang on to and now they say I owe them another $900. I’d love to be angry with them but the only one I should be angry with is me.
Karma is a total frickin’ bitch!!!!
I don’t know what I did to bring this on but, man, it is getting piled on by the boatload. I’m trying my best to just bear down and get through this but I have to tell you: it’s tough!
I need to stop thinking about this before I blow a blood vessel.
I started with the places that were closest to me. Some places only accept aluminum, some only cardboard – so I looked for places that accepted all of what I had. There appeared to be 4 of them and they were all within city limits. Great.
So off I went to the first location. Well, what they didn’t tell you is that they charge by the pound… and me without my checkbook.
I headed off to the next location (the high school from which I graduated) but stopped off at another location I THOUGHT had some recycling containers. Apparently that location no longer had the receptacles because I looked all around so I headed to the school.
Upon reaching the high school I did not see any recycling center. It mentioned online that this was a “manned” location that was open 24-hours (it was only manned during the day). The campus looked about the same as I remember while I was driving around but no indication of them doing any recycling. Hmm.
Now I’m getting a little perturbed. I’m 0 for 3.
All right, so I head back home to get some lunch and regroup. There are 2 more locations on the other side of town. Maybe I’ll make some calls and see what’s what.
Seems my luck is about the same. I called the number of the “Recycling Coordinator” for the city – the CITY!!! – And the number is disconnected. No forwarding number.
So I head out after lunch and go for the one furthest from me. Oops! I just passed one of the sites. That’s okay; I’ll swing by on the way home.
The others sites would only accept one or two of my items – this one I’m headed to advertises itself as taking all of them. But my luck continues.
I’m thinking that this is going to be some impressive site with state-of-the-art sorting bins and recycling capabilities. Nope, it’s just three large dumpsters and all they take is cardboard. What?!?
I take what I have for cardboard and slide it into the thin slots. All three dumpsters are almost at capacity. It’s windy today so that large pieces of flat cardboard act like a sail and get away from me. It’s like trying to load an angry cat into its carrier. I finally get all the pieces in the slots and leave. I don’t feel satisfied because cardboard was the smallest part of my haul.
Finally, I start for home with the thought of dropping by the last and final recycling station. I turn into the parking lot to find all they accept are aluminum cans. Blurgh! I do have some aluminum cans but they’re all mixed together with plastic and glass bottles. I’m not sitting there in front of this stupid thing separating out aluminum cans in windy, 40-degree weather. This is ridiculous!
I’m not proud of what I did next; in fact, I’m sort of embarrassed. I tried to do the right thing. I felt like I did due diligence in finding these places. I must admit that I threw all my bags into a dumpster.
I think my story emphasizes what’s wrong with recycling in this country. More people are not doing it for this reason alone – the system is totally disorganized!
Okay, to be fair I DO have curbside recycling. I have large blue container that I wheel out to my curb every two weeks. But in this case I had more recyclable materials than would fit in that container and I wanted to do the responsible thing. My attempts were thwarted and I feel badly.
*** THIS JUST IN ***
More from the “good news” department. I just got a call from my lovable city in which I owe them more taxes on my house. I just sent them a check for $800 that I REALLY would have loved to hang on to and now they say I owe them another $900. I’d love to be angry with them but the only one I should be angry with is me.
Karma is a total frickin’ bitch!!!!
I don’t know what I did to bring this on but, man, it is getting piled on by the boatload. I’m trying my best to just bear down and get through this but I have to tell you: it’s tough!
I need to stop thinking about this before I blow a blood vessel.